And when the great town closes
Upon me like a sea,
Daylong, above its weary din,
I hear them call to me.
Dead folk, the roofs are round me,
To bar out field and hill,
And yet I hear you on the wind
Calling and calling still;
And while, by street and pavement,
The day runs slowly through,
My soul, across these haunted downs,
Goes forth and walks with you.
THE SCARLET LILIES
I see her as though she were standing yet
In her tower at the end of the town,
When the hot sun mounts and when dusk comes down,
With her two hands laid on the parapet;
The curve of her throat as she turns this way,
The bend of her body--I see it all;
And the watching eyes that look day by day
O'er the flood that runs by the city wall.
The winds by the river would come and go
On the flame-red gown she was wont to wear,
And the scarlet lilies that crowned her hair,
And the scarlet lilies that grew below.
I used to lie like a wolf in his lair,
With a burning heart and a soul in thrall,
Gazing across in a fume of despair
O'er the flood that runs by the river wall.
I saw when he came with his tiger's eyes,
That held you still in the grip of their glance,
And the cat-smooth air he had learned in France,
The light on his sword from the evening skies;
When the heron stood at the water's edge,
And the sun went down in a crimson ball,
I crouched in a thicket of rush and sedge
By the flood that runs by the river wall.
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